27th/28th/29th June

This weekend I was going to Shrewsbury to compete so I decided to take Blossom with me, to help her gain confidence at different places and to get her used to being at shows. So hopefully when I start to compete her again it will make things a lot easier on Blossom.

We left on Friday morning, and I loaded the other two ponies first as I know Blossom is more confident if there is another pony in the lorry before her. She loaded well and travelled really well the whole way. When we arrived we built the corralls before unloading the ponies so they had somewhere to go as soon as they came out the lorry. She was quite on her toes when she came out but after that time in the lorry I don’t blame her, she stood well in her corrall and let me take her travel stuff of her and put a waterproof rug on her as it was raining.
I had hoped to take her for a walk round the showground, but by the time I got my tent up and had some dinner it was getting dark and we had to go to the briefing so I just left her for the night.

On Saturday morning I wanted to go and watch one of the teams that was in the arena so decided to use that as an opportunity to take Blossom with me and try and get her used to the atmosphere and noise. Leading her up to the ring she was really RB and was jogging and dancing about all over the place. Because we were heading to the ring on quite a busy bit of the showground it wasn’t possible to try and use approach and retreat as there was too many people, ponies, lorries and cars passing us at the same time. So instead I got her to back up for a few steps, then sideways, then played with the half circle game. By the time we got to the ring, she was a lot calmer but still couldn’t keep her feet still. So I played lots of yo yo game with her as I found that this seems to be a really good game for Blossom and seems to calm her and gets her attention on me. By the time the teams in the arena were on there econd race I was able to ask her to come closer to the fence and watch the other ponies. She really did appear to be watching and stood very relaxed.

In the evening after I had finished for the day I decided to go out and ride her. I saddled her in the corall as I didn’t want to be leaving my saddle lying about while I played with her before mounting.
She was really calm when I took her out of the corall and walked calm to the area I was going to play with her, what a difference from the moring! We warmed up playing with the seven games, all went well so I then done some pre mounting checks then mounted. I walked, trotted and got some really nice canter which was a nice surprise! I was getting some really strange look riding in my hackamore – it was quite funny!! We then went for a ride around the showground and she walked really nice the whole way and even stopped and stood still to let me read the for sale notices that were on the board!

On Sunday I didn’t do very much with Blossom because of the times of my session and final – but I feel that just the experience of being there and just going for a little walk was enough for her! I hope to start taking her to more shows with me as this will be great experience for her and will also really test my savvy to see if I am a good enough leader for her in these new places!